Brain networks sub-serving self-referential processing in depression

2016 ◽  
Vol 33 (S1) ◽  
pp. S45-S45 ◽  
Author(s):  
G. Wagner ◽  
C. Schachtzabel ◽  
G. Peikert ◽  
K.J. Bär
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Control ◽  
Stroop Task ◽  
Emotional Processing ◽  
Incongruent Condition ◽  
Reward Processing ◽  
Anterior Cingulate ◽  
Central Feature ◽  
Depressed Patients ◽  
Affective Stimuli ◽  
Referential Processing

IntroductionPersistent pondering over negative self-related thoughts is a central feature of depressive psychopathology.ObjectivesIn the present study, we sought to investigate the neural correlates of abnormal negative self-referential processing (SRP) in patients with major depressive disorder (MDD) and its impact on subsequent cognitive control-related neuronal activation.AimsWe hypothesized aberrant activation dynamics during the period of negative and neutral SRP in the rostral anterior cingulate cortex (rACC) and in the amygdala in patients with MDD. We assumed abnormal activation in the fronto-cingulate network during Stroop task execution.MethodsNineteen depressed patients and 20 healthy controls participated in the study. Using an event-related fMRI design, negative, positive and neutral self-referential statements were displayed for 6.5s and followed by incongruent or congruent Stroop conditions.ResultsIn contrast to controls, patients did not exhibit valence-dependent rACC activation differences during SRP. A novel finding was the significant activation of the amygdala and the reward-processing network during presentation of neutral self-referential stimuli relative to baseline and to affective stimuli in patients. The fMRI analysis of the Stroop task revealed a reduced BOLD activation in the right frontoparietal network of patients in the incongruent condition after negative SRP only.ConclusionsThus, the inflexible activation in the rACC may correspond to the inability of depressed patients to shift their attention away from negative self-related stimuli. The accompanying negative affect and task-irrelevant emotional processing may compete for neuronal resources with cognitive control processes and lead thereby to deficient cognitive performance associated with decreased frontoparietal activation.Disclosure of interestThe authors have not supplied their declaration of competing interest.

Neural Dynamics of Rejection Sensitivity

2007 ◽  
Vol 19 (6) ◽  
pp. 945-956 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ethan Kross ◽  
Tobias Egner ◽  
Kevin Ochsner ◽  
Joy Hirsch ◽  
Geraldine Downey
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Control ◽  
Emotional Processing ◽  
Rejection Sensitivity ◽  
Brain Regions ◽  
Anterior Cingulate ◽  
Self Report ◽  
Dorsal Anterior Cingulate Cortex ◽  
Affective Stimuli ◽  
Emotional Appraisal ◽  
Interest Level

Rejection sensitivity (RS) is the tendency to anxiously expect, readily perceive, and intensely react to rejection. This study used functional magnetic resonance imaging to explore whether individual differences in RS are mediated by differential recruitment of brain regions involved in emotional appraisal and/or cognitive control. High and low RS participants were scanned while viewing either representational paintings depicting themes of rejection and acceptance or nonrepresentational control paintings matched for positive or negative valence, arousal and interest level. Across all participants, rejection versus acceptance images activated regions of the brain involved in processing affective stimuli (posterior cingulate, insula), and cognitive control (dorsal anterior cingulate cortex; medial frontal cortex). Low and high RS individuals' responses to rejection versus acceptance images were not, however, identical. Low RS individuals displayed significantly more activity in left inferior and right dorsal frontal regions, and activity in these areas correlated negatively with participants' self-report distress ratings. In addition, control analyses revealed no effect of viewing negative versus positive images in any of the areas described above, suggesting that the aforementioned activations were involved in rejection-relevant processing rather than processing negatively valenced stimuli per se. Taken together, these findings suggest that responses in regions traditionally implicated in emotional processing and cognitive control are sensitive to rejection stimuli irrespective of RS, but that low RS individuals may activate prefrontal structures to regulate distress associated with viewing such images.

scholarly journals The Lateral and Ventromedial Prefrontal Cortex Work as a Dynamic Integrated System: Evidence from fMRI Connectivity Analysis

2009 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 141-154 ◽  
Author(s):  
Olivia Longe ◽  
Carl Senior ◽  
Gina Rippon
Keyword(s):  
Prefrontal Cortex ◽  
Functional Connectivity ◽  
Cognitive Processing ◽  
Emotional Processing ◽  
Memory Load ◽  
Memory Task ◽  
Reward Processing ◽  
Integrated System ◽  
Reciprocal Relationship ◽  
Anterior Cingulate

Recent functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) investigations of the interaction between cognition and reward processing have found that the lateral prefrontal cortex (PFC) areas are preferentially activated to both increasing cognitive demand and reward level. Conversely, ventromedial PFC (VMPFC) areas show decreased activation to the same conditions, indicating a possible reciprocal relationship between cognitive and emotional processing regions. We report an fMRI study of a rewarded working memory task, in which we further explore how the relationship between reward and cognitive processing is mediated. We not only assess the integrity of reciprocal neural connections between the lateral PFC and VMPFC brain regions in different experimental contexts but also test whether additional cortical and subcortical regions influence this relationship. Psychophysiological interaction analyses were used as a measure of functional connectivity in order to characterize the influence of both cognitive and motivational variables on connectivity between the lateral PFC and the VMPFC. Psychophysiological interactions revealed negative functional connectivity between the lateral PFC and the VMPFC in the context of high memory load, and high memory load in tandem with a highly motivating context, but not in the context of reward alone. Physiophysiological interactions further indicated that the dorsal anterior cingulate and the caudate nucleus modulate this pathway. These findings provide evidence for a dynamic interplay between lateral PFC and VMPFC regions and are consistent with an emotional gating role for the VMPFC during cognitively demanding tasks. Our findings also support neuropsychological theories of mood disorders, which have long emphasized a dysfunctional relationship between emotion/motivational and cognitive processes in depression.

scholarly journals The neural basis of the abnormal self‐referential processing and its impact on cognitive control in depressed patients

2015 ◽  
Vol 36 (7) ◽  
pp. 2781-2794 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gerd Wagner ◽  
Claudia Schachtzabel ◽  
Gregor Peikert ◽  
Karl‐Jürgen Bär
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Control ◽  
Neural Basis ◽  
Depressed Patients ◽  
Referential Processing

scholarly journals Transcranial Focused Ultrasound Alters Conflict and Emotional Processing, Physiology, and Performance II: Right Anterior Insula/Frontal Operculum Targeting

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maria E Fini ◽  
William J Tyler
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Control ◽  
Emotional Processing ◽  
Focused Ultrasound ◽  
Event Related Potentials ◽  
Anterior Cingulate ◽  
Dorsal Anterior Cingulate Cortex ◽  
Attention Switching ◽  
Related Potentials ◽  
Emotional Attention ◽  
Transcranial Focused Ultrasound

The dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC) operates as an integrator of bottom-up and top-down signals and is implicated in both cognitive control and emotional processing. The dACC is believed to be causally involved in switching between attention networks, and previous work has linked it to cognitive performance, concentration, relaxation, and emotional distraction. The present study was designed to evaluate the feasibility of influencing default mode network (DMN) activity and emotional attention by targeting and modulating the dACC with transcranial focused ultrasound (tFUS). Subjects were divided into two groups, one receiving MR-neuronavigated tFUS to the dACC and the other an identical, but inactive tFUS sham. Subjects performed a modified version of the Erikson flanker paradigm using fear and neutral faces as emotional background distractors. Our observations demonstrate that tFUS can be targeted to the human dACC to produce effects consistent with those expected from relaxed contention, including significantly reduced reaction time slowing due to emotional distractors, and an increase in parasympathetic markers of the HRV. These results suggest that tFUS altered emotional processing and enhanced sustained attention, perhaps by facilitating reduced attentional engagement with emotional distractors and reduced need for attention switching evidenced by significant effects on event related potentials (ERPs), reduced alpha suppression, and modulation of delta and theta EEG activity. We conclude that the dACC represents a viable neuroanatomical target for tFUS in order to modulate DMN activity, including emotional attention, conflict resolution, and cognitive control. These effects of dACC-targeted tFUS may prove useful for treating certain mental health disorders known to involve perturbed DMN activity, such as depression and anxiety.

Behavioral and Neural Evidence for Item-specific Performance Monitoring

2010 ◽  
Vol 22 (12) ◽  
pp. 2758-2767 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chris Blais ◽  
Silvia Bunge
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Control ◽  
Stroop Task ◽  
Performance Monitoring ◽  
Local Level ◽  
Anterior Cingulate ◽  
Major Focus ◽  
General Rules ◽  
Specific Performance ◽  
Dorsolateral Prefrontal ◽  
Behavioral Evidence

How cognitive control is recruited and implemented has become a major focus of researchers in cognitive psychology and neuroscience. Current theories posit that cognitive control operates at the level of general rules—for example, in a Stroop task, “attend to the color of the stimulus.” Here we report behavioral evidence suggesting that cognitive control is implemented much more locally, operating at the level of specific stimuli appearing in a task block. In addition, we report neural evidence that many of the regions implicated in cognitive control on the Stroop task, including anterior cingulate cortex and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, operate at a local level.

Functional neuroimaging in anorexia nervosa: A clinical approach

2011 ◽  
Vol 26 (3) ◽  
pp. 176-182 ◽  
Author(s):  
F. Pietrini ◽  
G. Castellini ◽  
V. Ricca ◽  
C. Polito ◽  
A. Pupi ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Anorexia Nervosa ◽  
Emotional Processing ◽  
Functional Neuroimaging ◽  
Body Schema ◽  
Reward Processing ◽  
The Body ◽  
Anterior Cingulate ◽  
Clinical Approach ◽  
Cerebral Activity ◽  
High Level

AbstractAimsTo provide a review of the available literature about the functional neuroimaging of anorexia nervosa, and to summarize the possible role of neurobiological factors in its pathogenesis.MethodsA systematic review of the literature was performed using PubMed and Medline electronic database (1950–September 2009). Eligible studies were restricted to those involving the main parameters of cerebral activity and functional neuroimaging techniques. Findings of the reviewed studies have been grouped on a diagnostic subtype basis, and their comparison has been interpreted in terms of concordance.ResultsWe found a high level of concordance among available studies with regard to the presence of frontal, parietal and cingulate functional disturbances in both anorexia nervosa restricting and binge/purging subtypes. Concordance among studies conducted regardless of the anorexia nervosa subtypes suggests an alteration in temporal and parietal functions and striatal metabolism.ConclusionsThe most consistent alterations in anorexia nervosa cerebral activity seem to involve the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, the inferior parietal lobule, the anterior cingulate cortex and the caudate nucleus. They may affect different neural systems such as the frontal visual system, the attention network, the arousal and emotional processing systems, the reward processing network, and the network for the body schema.

scholarly journals Regional brain abnormalities in behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia: a meta-analysis

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aida Kamalian ◽  
Tina khodadadifar ◽  
Amin Saberi ◽  
Maryam Masoudi ◽  
Julia Camilleri ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Frontotemporal Dementia ◽  
Emotional Processing ◽  
Best Practice ◽  
Meta Analysis ◽  
Likelihood Estimation ◽  
Reward Processing ◽  
Anterior Cingulate ◽  
Brain Abnormalities ◽  
Resting State Functional Connectivity ◽  
Behavioral Variant Frontotemporal Dementia

INTRODUCTION: Numerous studies have reported brain alterations in behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD). However, they pointed to inconsistent findings. METHODS: We used a meta-analytic approach to identify the convergent structural and functional brain abnormalities in bvFTD. Following the best-practice neuroimaging meta-analysis guidelines, we searched PubMed and Embase databases and performed reference tracking. Then, the coordinates of group comparisons between bvFTD and controls from 73 studies were extracted and tested for convergence using activation likelihood estimation. RESULTS: We identified convergent abnormalities in the anterior cingulate cortices, anterior insula, amygdala, paracingulate, striatum, and hippocampus. Task-based and resting-state functional connectivity pointed to the joint networks that are connected to the obtained consistent regions. Functional decoding analyses suggested associated dysfunction of emotional processing, interoception, reward processing, higher-order cognitive functions, olfactory and gustatory perceptions in bvFTD.DISCUSSION: Our findings highlighted a key role of the salience network and subcortical regions in the pathophysiology of bvFTD.

scholarly journals Transcranial Focused Ultrasound Alters Conflict and Emotional Processing, Physiology, and Performance I: Dorsal Anterior Cingulate Cortex Targeting

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maria Fini ◽  
William J. Tyler
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Control ◽  
Anterior Cingulate Cortex ◽  
Emotional Processing ◽  
Focused Ultrasound ◽  
Cingulate Cortex ◽  
Anterior Cingulate ◽  
Dorsal Anterior Cingulate Cortex ◽  
Related Potentials ◽  
Emotional Attention ◽  
Transcranial Focused Ultrasound

ABSTRACTThe dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC) operates as an integrator of bottom-up and top-down signals and is implicated in both cognitive control and emotional processing. The dACC is believed to be causally involved in switching between attention networks, and previous work has linked it to cognitive performance, concentration, relaxation, and emotional distraction. The present study was designed to evaluate the feasibility of influencing default mode network (DMN) activity and emotional attention by targeting and modulating the dACC with transcranial focused ultrasound (tFUS). Subjects were divided into two groups, one receiving MR-neuronavigated tFUS to the dACC and the other an identical, but inactive tFUS sham. Subjects performed a modified version of the Erikson flanker paradigm using fear and neutral faces as emotional background distractors. Our observations demonstrate that tFUS can be targeted to the human dACC to produce effects consistent with those expected from relaxed contention, including significantly reduced reaction time slowing due to emotional distractors, and an increase in parasympathetic markers of the HRV. These results suggest that tFUS altered emotional processing and enhanced sustained attention, perhaps by facilitating reduced attentional engagement with emotional distractors and reduced need for attention switching evidenced by significant effects on event related potentials (ERPs), reduced alpha suppression, and modulation of delta and theta EEG activity. We conclude that the dACC represents a viable neuroanatomical target for tFUS in order to modulate DMN activity, including emotional attention, conflict resolution, and cognitive control. These effects of dACC-targeted tFUS may prove useful for treating certain mental health disorders known to involve perturbed DMN activity, such as depression and anxiety.

scholarly journals Dissociable temporal effects of bupropion on behavioural measures of emotional and reward processing in depression

2018 ◽  
Vol 373 (1742) ◽  
pp. 20170030 ◽  
Author(s):  
Annabel E. L. Walsh ◽  
Michael Browning ◽  
Wayne C. Drevets ◽  
Maura Furey ◽  
Catherine J. Harmer
Keyword(s):  
Response Bias ◽  
Repeated Measures ◽  
Emotional Processing ◽  
High Probability ◽  
Instrumental Learning ◽  
Reward Processing ◽  
Healthy Controls ◽  
Open Label ◽  
Temporal Effects ◽  
Depressed Patients

Antidepressants remediate negative biases in emotional processing early in treatment, prior to mood improvement. However, the effects on reward processing potentially relevant to the treatment of anhedonia are less clear. Here we investigate the early and sustained effects of the dopamine and noradrenaline reuptake inhibitor bupropion on behavioural measures of emotional and reward processing in currently depressed individuals. Forty-six currently depressed patients and 42 healthy controls participated in a repeated measures study, during which open-label bupropion was administered to only the patient group over a six week period without a placebo group. All participants completed the Emotional Test Battery and a probabilistic instrumental learning task at week 0, week 2 and week 6. Currently depressed patients displayed negative biases in emotional processing and blunted response bias for high-probability wins compared to the healthy controls at baseline. Bupropion was found to reduce the negative biases in emotional processing early in treatment, including a significant decrease in the percentage misclassification of other face emotions as sad and the number of negative self-referent words falsely recalled between baseline and week 2. Conversely, bupropion was found to initially further reduce the response bias for high-probability wins between baseline and week 2. This effect reversed with six weeks' bupropion treatment and reward processing was normalized compared to the healthy controls. Early in treatment, bupropion acts to reduce negative biases in emotional processing but exacerbates impaired reward processing. The beneficial actions of bupropion on reward processing then occur later in treatment. Such dissociation in the temporal effects of bupropion on emotional and reward processing has implications for the treatment of the different symptom domains of negative affect and anhedonia in depression. This article is part of a discussion meeting issue ‘Of mice and mental health: facilitating dialogue between basic and clinical neuroscientists’.

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